During the use of electronic products such as a display device and the like, the exterior may be stained with fingerprints and thus contaminated due to the transcription of a fingerprint, and in the case of a display device, screen contrast is degraded.
Fingerprints mostly consist of sweat and sebum, and contaminants such as keratin that came off from the skin and dust from the outside are included therein. The main component of the fingerprint transcribed on the electronic product is sebum, which is known to include triglyceride, wax monoester, fatty acid, squalene, trace amounts of cholesterol and cholesteryl ester, and the like. Further, the constitutional elements of sebum have very low surface tension (surface tension of 30 to 35 mN/m) compared to water (surface tension of 72 mN/m), and thus fingerprints tend to easily stain the surface of any material.
In order to afford an anti-fingerprinting property to electronic products such as a display device, a method of forming a specific pattern on the outer surface of a product, a method of lowering visibility by broadly spreading the oil components of the fingerprint through a lipophilic coating, and the like are known.
Specifically, in the method of securing an anti-fingerprinting property by forming a specific pattern on the outer surface of a product, particles or patterns of a microsize are formed on the outside of a product, thereby forming surface texturing which increases haze, and thus, even if the product is stained with a fingerprint, it is not easily seen. For example, Korean Patent Application No. 2007-0084369 discloses a superhydrophobic substrate having protruded structures connected in a network, Korean Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2010-0105241 discloses an anti-fingerprint pattern having a specific height and width, and Korean Patent Application No. 2011-7003244 discloses a pattern consisting of projections of the shape of a truncated pyramid, a circular truncated cone, a compound parabola, a compound oval, a polyobject, or a three-dimensional rotatory body of a conic section.
However, according to the previously known method of forming specific patterns or projections, haze becomes 10% or more, thus lowering screen contrast in a display device and the like, or when a fingerprint is excessively transcribed, the fingerprint may penetrate into the texturing of the surface and become difficult to remove.
Meanwhile, the lipophilic coating affords visibility by spreading sebum, which is a main factor causing an inferior exterior property, thinly and broadly. However, while the lipophilic coating has high transmittance and low haze, it conceals a stained fingerprint rather than decreasing the stained amount of the fingerprint, and thus it cannot reduce the transcribed amount of the fingerprint itself, and if the fingerprint is excessively transcribed and stacked, it is not easy to completely remove it.
A method of securing anti-contamination by lowering surface energy of the exterior of a product using a coating material including a fluorine-based compound is also known. However, according to the coating of a material including a fluorine-based compound, contact angles to water and oil may become large thus increasing water repellency and oil repellency, but it is not sufficient to secure such properties to prevent transcription of a fingerprint, for example, outstanding water repellency and oil repellency. Further, it is also difficult to sufficiently reduce a transcribed amount of fingerprint by this method, and it is not easy to remove an attached fingerprint.
Accordingly, there is a demand for the development of an anti-fingerprint product that may minimize transcription of fingerprints onto the surface of a product, and yet allow easy removal of a transcribed fingerprint, and a method for realizing the same.